Food and Agriculture

Section 2: Crops and Soil

Preview
Bellringer
Objectives
Crops and Soil
Agriculture: Traditional
Agriculture: Modern
Fertile Soil: The Living Earth
Soil Erosion: A Global Problem

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Food and Agriculture

Section 2: Crops and Soil

Preview, continued
Land Degradation
Soil Conservation
Enriching the Soil
Salinization
Pest Control
Pesticides
Pesticide Resistance

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Food and Agriculture

Section 2: Crops and Soil

Preview, continued
Human Health Concerns
Pollution and Persistence
Biological Pest Control
Integrated Pest Management
Engineering a Better Crop
Implications of Genetic Engineering
Sustainable Agriculture

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Food and Agriculture

Bellringer

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Food and Agriculture

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Objectives
Distinguish between traditional and modern agricultural
techniques.
Describe fertile soil.
Describe the need for soil conservation.
Explain the benefits and environmental impacts of
pesticide use.
Explain what is involved in integrated pest management.
Explain how genetic engineering is used in agriculture.

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Crops and Soil

Arable land is farmland that can be used to grow crops.
The Earth has only a limited area of arable land.
But, as the human population continues to grow, the
amount of arable land per person decreases.

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Agriculture: Traditional
The basic processes of farming include plowing,
fertilization, irrigation, and pest control.
Traditionally, plows are pushed by the farmers or pulled
by livestock. Plowing helps crops grow by mixing soil
nutrients, loosening soil particles, and uprooting weeds.
Organic fertilizers, such as manure, are used to enrich
soil. While fields are irrigated by water flowing through
ditches.
These traditional techniques have been used since the
earliest days of farming.

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Agriculture: Modern
In most industrialized countries, the basic processes of
farming are now carried out using modern agricultural
methods.
Machinery powered by fossil fuels is now used to plow
the soil and harvest crops. Synthetic chemical fertilizers
have replaced manure and plant wastes to fertilize soil.
A variety of overhead sprinklers and drip systems may
be used for irrigation. And synthetic chemicals are used
to kill pests.

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Fertile Soil: The Living Earth

Soil that can support the growth of healthy plants is
called fertile soil.
Topsoil is the surface layer of the soil, which is usually
richer in organic matter than the subsoil is.
Fertile topsoil is composed of living organisms, rock
particles, water, air, and organic matter, such as dead or
decomposing organisms. Several layers of soil lie under
the topsoil. The bottom layer is bedrock, which is the
solid rock from which most soil originally forms.

Food and Agriculture

Fertile Soil: The Living Earth

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Food and Agriculture

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Fertile Soil: The Living Earth

Most soil forms when rock is broken down into smaller
and smaller fragments by wind, water, and chemical
weathering. Chemical weathering happens when the
minerals in rock react chemically with substances to form
new materials. Temperature changes and moisture can
also cause rock to crack and break apart.
It can take hundreds or even thousands of years for
these geological processes to form a few centimeters of
soil.

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Fertile Soil: The Living Earth

Other processes also help to produce fertile topsoil. For
example, the rock particles supply mineral nutrients to
the soil.
Fungi and bacteria live in the soil, and they decompose
dead plants as well as organic debris and add more
nutrients to the soil.
Earthworms, insects, and other small animals help plants
grow by breaking up the soil and allowing air and water
into it.

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Fertile Soil: The Living Earth

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Soil Erosion: A Global Problem

Erosion is a process in which the materials of the
Earths surface are loosened, dissolved, or worn away
and transported from one place to another by a natural
agent, such as wind, water, ice, or gravity.
In the U.S., about half of the original topsoil has been
lost to erosion in the past 200 years.
Without topsoil, crops cannot be grown. Yet, almost all
farming methods increase the rate of soil erosion.

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Soil Erosion: A Global Problem

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Land Degradation
Land degradation happens when human activity or
natural processes damage the land so that it can no
longer support the local ecosystem. In areas with dry
climates, desertification can occur.
Desertification is the process by which human activities
or climatic changes make arid or semiarid areas more
desertlike.
This process is causing some of our arable land to
disappear.

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Land Degradation
For example, in the past, people who lived in the drier
part of the Sahel region in Africa grazed animals, while
people in the wetter part of the region planted crops.The
grazing animals were moved from place to place to find
fresh grass. The cropland was planted for only a few
years, and then allowed to lie fallow, or to remain
unplanted, for several years.
These methods allowed the land to adequately support
the people in the Sahel.

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Land Degradation
But the population in the region has grown, and the land
is being farmed, grazed, and deforested faster than it
can regenerate. Crops are planted too frequently and
fallow periods are being shortened or eliminated
completely.
As a result, the soil is losing fertility and productivity.
Because of overgrazing, the land has fewer plants to
hold the topsoil in place.
So, large areas have become desert and can no longer
produce food.

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Soil Conservation
There are many ways of protecting and managing topsoil
and reducing erosion.
Soil usually erodes downhill, and many soil conservation
methods are designed to prevent downhill erosion.
For example, soil-retaining terraces can be build across
a hillside. On gentler slopes, contour plowing, which
consists of plowing across the slope of a hill instead of
up and down the slope, can be used.

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Soil Conservation
An even more effective method of plowing is leaving
strips of vegetation across the hillside instead of plowing
the entire slope.
These strips catch soil and water that run down the hill.
Still, many areas of land that have hills are not suited to
farming, but may be better used as forest or grazing
land.

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Soil Conservation
In no-till farming, a crop is harvested without turning the
soil over, as in traditional farming.
Later, the seeds of the next crop are planted among the
remains of the previous crop. The remains of the first
crop hold the soil in place while the new crop develops.
Although this method saves time and reduces soil
erosion, it is not suited for all crops. Other disadvantages
include soil that is too densely packed and lower crop
yields over time.

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Enriching the Soil

Soil was traditionally fertilized by adding organic matter
that would decompose, adding nutrients to the soil and
improving the soil texture.
However, inorganic fertilizers that contain nitrogen,
phosphorous, and potassium have changed farming
methods. Without them, world food production would be
less than half of what it is today.
If erosion occurs in areas fertilized with inorganic
materials, waterways may become polluted.

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Enriching the Soil

Over the past 50 years, the use of such inorganic
fertilizers has increased rapidly.

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Enriching the Soil

A modern method of enhancing the soil is to use both
organic and inorganic materials by adding compost and
chemical fertilizers to the soil.
Compost is a mixture of decomposing organic matter,
such as manure and rotting plants, that is used as
fertilizer and soil conditioner.
Many cities and industries now compost yard and crop
wastes. This compost is then sold to farmers and
gardeners, and the process is saving costly land fill
space.

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Salinization
The accumulation of salts in the soil is known as
salinization.
Salinization is a major problem in places that have low
rainfall and naturally salty soil.
When water evaporates from irrigated land, salts are left
behind.
Salinization can be slowed if irrigation canals are lined to
prevent water from seeping into the soil, or if the soil is
watered heavily to wash out salts.

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Pest Control
Worldwide, pests destroy about one-third of the worlds
potential food harvest.
A pest is any organism that occurs where it is not wanted
or that occurs in large enough numbers to cause
economic damage.
Humans try to control populations of many types of
pests, including plants, fungi, insects, and
microorganisms.

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Pesticides
Many farmers rely on pesticides to produce their crops.
A pesticide is a poison used to destroy pests, such as
insects, rodents, or weeds; examples include
insecticides, rodenticides, and herbicides.
Pesticides, however, can also harm beneficial plants and
insects, wildlife, and even people.

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Pesticide Resistance
Over time, spraying large amounts of pesticide to get rid
of pests usually makes the pest problem worse.
Pest populations may evolve resistance, the ability to
survive exposure to a particular pesticide.
More than 500 species of insects have developed
resistance to pesticides since the 1940s.

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Human Health Concerns

Pesticides are designed to kill organisms, so they may
also be dangerous to humans.
Cancer rates among children in areas where large
amounts of pesticides are used on crops are sometimes
higher than the national average.
People who apply pesticides need to follow safety
guidelines to protect themselves from contact with these
chemicals.

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Pollution and Persistence

The problem of pesticides harming people and other
organisms is especially serious with pesticides that are
persistent.
A pesticide is persistent if it does not break down easily
or quickly in the environment.
Persistent pesticides do not break down into harmless
chemicals, and they accumulate in the water and soil.
Some pesticides have been banned in the United States
for decades but can still be detected in the environment.

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Biological Pest Control

Biological pest control is the use of certain organisms by
humans to eliminate or control pests.
Every pest has enemies in the wild, and these enemies can
sometimes be used to control pest populations.
Biological pest control includes the use of
pathogens,
plant defenses,
chemicals from plants,
and the disrupting of insect breeding

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Integrated Pest Management

Integrated pest management is a modern method of
controlling pests on crops.
The goal of integrated pest management is not to
eliminate pest populations but to reduce pest damage to
a level that causes minimal economic damage.
Such programs can include a mix of farming methods,
biological pest control, and chemical pest control.

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Integrated Pest Management

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Integrated Pest Management

Biological methods are the first methods used to control
the pest. So, natural predators, pathogens, and parasites
of the pest may be introduced.
Cultivation controls, such as vacuuming insects off the
plants, can also be used.
As a last resort, small amounts of insecticides may be
used. These insecticides are changed over time to
reduce the ability of pests to evolve resistance.

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Engineering a Better Crop

Genetic engineering is a technology in which the
genome of a living cell is modified for medical or
industrial use.
Scientists may use genetic engineering to transfer
desirable traits, such as resistance to certain pests, from
one organism to another.
Plants that result from genetic engineering are called
genetically modified (GM) plants.

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Engineering a Better Crop

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Implications of Genetic Engineering

In the United States, we now eat and use genetically
engineered agricultural products everyday.
Many of these products, however, have not been fully
tested for their environmental impacts.
Some scientists warn that these products will cause
problems in the future.

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Sustainable Agriculture
Farming that conserves natural resources and helps
keep the land productive indefinitely is called sustainable
agriculture.
Sustainable agriculture involves planting productive,
pest-resistant crop varieties that require little energy,
pesticides, fertilizer, and water.

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